Recognised Sponsorship
Recognised sponsorship is a status that companies can apply for at the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst, IND). If the application is granted, the employer will be considered a ‘reliable partner’ of the IND. For these companies, it is not only faster, but also easier to apply for residence permits for foreign national employees. In addition, several immigration procedures – such as the highly-skilled migrant permit and various work permit categories – are exclusively accessible to these recognised sponsors.
The highly-skilled migrant programme is attractive, among other things, because the employer can easily determine in advance whether the employee is eligible for the permit, the application process takes place online, few underlying documents need to be sent along with the application, and the application is processed quickly by the authorities. In many cases, it is possible for a highly-skilled migrant to be working in the Netherlands within four weeks of accepting a position.
For these reasons, many companies may wish to become a recognised sponsor, but the IND sets strict conditions for this. To provide further context, the organisation must be registered in the Netherlands in the Trade Register (het Handelsregister), the continuity and solvency of the organisation must be guaranteed, and directors and stakeholders must be ‘reliable.’ For example, if an organisation has previously been fined under the Aliens Act (Vreemdelingenwet) or the Foreign Nationals Employment Act (Wet Arbeid Vreemdelingen), this may be a reason to reject the application for recognised sponsorship.
Especially for companies that have not been established in the Netherlands for very long, the application process for recognised sponsorship is uncertain and can also take a very long time. This is because in those cases, the IND cannot easily determine whether it is a reliable and financially stable company.
This may be the case even if the company is part of a large international group of companies; the IND assesses the independent Dutch entity.
Highly-Skilled Migrant via Lending Construct No Longer Allowed
Although the practice was not foreseen, soon after the introduction of the sponsorship system, companies that have recognised sponsorship started to lend highly-skilled migrants to other parties through this sponsorship; this is also known as 'payrolling.' By using this service, it is still possible for companies without recognised sponsorship to obtain a highly-skilled migrant permit for their foreign employees. But this form of service is not entirely without controversy and there have been signs of abuse. For example, there are people who do not live or work in the Netherlands, but have nevertheless received a residence permit through such an arrangement. Moreover, it now involves large numbers of highly-skilled migrants who have a Dutch residence permit through this payrolling practice.
To prevent abuse of the highly-skilled migrant programme, the Minister of Asylum and Migration (minister van Asiel en Migratie) has announced1 that recognised sponsors will no longer be allowed to lend highly-skilled migrants to other parties on a commercial basis. Some exceptions are permitted, but even in those cases it is only temporarily allowed. An example would be a company that has applied for recognised sponsorship, but that application has not yet been decided and the company needs a highly-skilled migrant in place at the work-site/-place sooner. In such cases, the payrolling company must make clear, among other things, why the lending arrangement is being used temporarily, and must provide information about the actual employer of the highly-skilled migrant. A more extensive duty of care will apply to such cases; the details of which will still need to be published in the Regulation for Foreign Nationals (Voorschrift Vreemdelingen).
